It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as one part of your life starts looking up, another falls to pieces.

I come from Yorkshire in England where we like to eat chip sandwiches - white bread, butter, tomato ketchup and big fat french fries cooked in beef dripping.

It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, with its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it. Was really beginning to enjoy the feeling that normal service was suspended and it was OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything you fancy into your mouth, and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings. Now suddenly we are all supposed to snap into self-discipline like lean teenage greyhounds.

In terms of parenthood, I think the pressure has amped up massively too. Some parents are setting the bar ludicrously high in terms of doing things "right," and seeing children more as products to be perfected than simply children.

With most of the events in the books [ Bridget Jones Diaries ] I draw a little bit from my own life and some from what I see happening around me.

..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.

It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.